About The Author

43 Comments

Initial struggling days are over for GNome… now it is nice to see how well it is progressing. Infact it has become desktop of the lot of major distro…

GNome still lacks application level keyboard shortcuts. Which KDE/icewm/WindowMaker/Blockbox all of them offer!

Looking at the battle of the Debian-Firefox… I guess we can expect GNome-Browser getting stronger and stronger… all though we all feel firefox is ours

New GNome release is targeting thunderbird indexing in beagle too also Evince is going to get better… If i see evince progress its definitely on right path.. One upon a time without Acrobat reader i never used to read pdf files due to display quality… but now I still have not installed acrobat reader…

GNome is definitely on its right path to success. It may not match Windows/Mac look and feel… yet I love GNome and I’m quite passionate about it.

Given the recent uproar about the Novell-MS deal that concerns Mono (among other things), I wonder if there will be a movement within Gnome to remove C# and Mono? I don’t know if this would really be a fork, but you get the general idea.

Well, the thing is that there are a whole bunch of languages and bindings that already exist. Everything from Haskell to Lisp to Python. Mono is popular, but isn’t really part of the Gnome platform any more than the others. Gnome is still mostly a C project, with bindings for other languages. Quite good support, of course.

One of the few Linux distributers with the ability to help bring Linux mainstream strikes a major deal and instead of celebrating, most of the community wants to fork Gnome, remove Mono, and boycott their products.

They have not even done anything wrong yet and the mob has already assembled and lit the torches.

You want to throw away all of Novell/SuSE’s contributions just becasue MS is’t going to sue their customers over the next 5 years? Big deal.

This is because to many of you OSS is a religion and this is all some kind of David vs Goliath thing.

If this David isn’t going to duel with Goliath we cast him aside and find some other underdog to root for.

Red Hat just recently offered their customers protection from IP lawsuits also, does this mean they are alienating the rest of the community too?

I say we rally the mob and remove their changes!

Linus holds a trademark to the Linux name, lets rename it! I vote for ReligiOS.

Yeah, no kidding. Hell I like using C# its a pretty decent language and I fail to see why the Novel-Microsoft partnership has any bearings at all on the use of Mono. Mono was there long before that deal.

The linux community really does have some psychopath/sociopath nut-jobs. I think the only way it could get any nuttier is if they founded their own religion based on the terminal and worshipped the all-mighty “root”.

Mono is still free, still free to use, and its ripping Microsoft off, so what’s the damn problem?

Yeah, no kidding. Hell I like using C# its a pretty decent language and I fail to see why the Novel-Microsoft partnership has any bearings at all on the use of Mono. Mono was there long before that deal

That’s because unlike the true FOSS community, you have no clue about the sayings of Mono’s main author, how he assured things to people, and how his sayings now contradict what he said before, about litigation risks.

The linux community really does have some psychopath/sociopath nut-jobs. I think the only way it could get any nuttier is if they founded their own religion based on the terminal and worshipped the all-mighty “root”

I would say you are one of the worst. But fortunately, you’re not part of the “linux community”.

Mono is still free, still free to use, and its ripping Microsoft off, so what’s the damn problem?

Legal : litigation risks.

But how could you know ? You don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Yeah, like up until now litigation wasn’t possible. Litigation was Hanging over our heads from day 0. And only problem with litigation was that small developers wouldn’t survive even starting legal costs.

There are two completely different things in question here:

– Proving in court that you don’t break IP laws

– Have enough cash to start proving and survive longterm litigation

And problem with MS was unlimited amount of cash.

Your only goal is badmouthing the “linux community”.

Well, that depends on the viewer. I personally saw his view going the same way as Linus and kernel developers when they refused GPLv3. Refusing it for the sake of easier adoption, and I think we both agree GPLv3 if more “free” than GPLv2″

You should also read posts Linus made about NVidia blob. Funny, he wasn’t so destructive.

One thing is to have free software, which is something completely different from RMS variant of religiously free software. Linux could only lose from religion, not gain.

Again, here are three alternatives:

– living by the rules of “free” religion

– enforcing “free” religion on everybody just because you and you alike think they’re wrong (one funny thing that strikes me is that a lot of those people use ubuntu which comes with quite a few binary blobs which install by default, for example wireless)

– don’t give a flying dick about proprietary, binary blob or free, which would amount for 90% of users

p.s. This post is coming from someone who is currently considering to remove all NVidia gfx cards from his computers and replacing them with probably not so good alternatives for the sake of refusing “binary blobs”. I use FC for the same reason of “free” and even worse, all but one machine (test only) don’t have installed one single proprietary codec (ok, for some I bought special software, but this is not related). And yes, one machine has mono installed.

Yeah, like up until now litigation wasn’t possible. Litigation was Hanging over our heads from day 0. And only problem with litigation was that small developers wouldn’t survive even starting legal costs

So why did it make you laugh ?

Because as you obviously don’t know, M. De Icaza (MDI) asserted us for years that Mono was no problem. And then you come saying he was wrong all this time.

Guess what, lots of people was saying the same, and you’re part of them. So I don’t understand how this could make you laugh.

Or are you laughing at the fact that MDI was lying and now mocks you and others ?

I personally saw his view going the same way as Linus and kernel developers when they refused GPLv3. Refusing it for the sake of easier adoption, and I think we both agree GPLv3 if more “free” than GPLv2

I don’t know what more free means. To me, GPLv3 just better presents the views of the FSF than GPLv2, that’s all.

I had no problem with some Linux devs refusing GPLv3, but I had problems with these same people not wanting that GPLv3 ever come into existence.

You should also read posts Linus made about NVidia blob. Funny, he wasn’t so destructive

Linus is the last person you should ask about legal problems. He sure enough is no authority on the matter. Everything he ever said on these matters were counterproductive.

One thing is to have free software, which is something completely different from RMS variant of religiously free software

Again, only clueless religious people see anything religious about FSF and the GPL.

I’ve known FOSS only since 1999, and I already saw all the traps FSF and the GPL saved us from.

Again, here are three alternatives:

– living by the rules of “free” religion

Freedom has never been a religion. Stop this crap already.

GPL is a license BTW. I or others can never have a productive discussion with people like you that can’t make the difference between a license and a religion.

FSF has a political goal. I repeat the same things about people that can’t separate politics and religion.

– enforcing “free” religion on everybody just because you and you alike think they’re wrong (one funny thing that strikes me is that a lot of those people use ubuntu which comes with quite a few binary blobs which install by default, for example wireless)

Again, only you and your peers think these people are religious or extremists. These people never enforced anything on you either.

What you propose is unreasonable at best.

– don’t give a flying dick about proprietary, binary blob or free, which would amount for 90% of users

Wrong !

90 % of users don’t know how to get rid of this, which is very different from “they don’t give a flying dick”.

This post is coming from someone who …

And this one from someone who use Linux because for him, it’s actually far better than any other OS out there, that use NVidia binary blobs, and that has mono installed on his main computer.

Read my comment again. You’re asserting that with mono there is a possibility of litigation, which it seems you think didn’t exist before.

Litigation possibility existed forever. Let me give you a clue.

Company like MS can simply say product A violates our patent B. And it doesn’t even matter if it does. It is 99% possible that small developer couldn’t fund the starting cost of litigation and would simply have to surrender.

MS (or any other company for that matter) could simply redirect part of their advertising or R&D money into the plan of litigation which would exist without any base. This would mean a lot of bad PR and FUD for OSS, along with developers who would be forced simply to stop what they are doing for one sole reason. No funds to prove their right in court.

Company which would start litigating in that matter wouldn’t even think they will profit from litigation. Exactly opposite, they would kiss goodbye to that money and any profit from it even before starting with this plan. FUD and other effects would be payment considered as big enough. The only thing stopping them from doing that is the fact they are unsure if this would mean too much bad PR as feedback (suing small developers wouldn’t be viewed as goodwill, and there are monopoly issues which are always hanging over MS).

Because as you obviously don’t know, M. De Icaza (MDI) asserted us for years that Mono was no problem. And then you come saying he was wrong all this time.

Guess what, lots of people was saying the same, and you’re part of them. So I don’t understand how this could make you laugh.

Or are you laughing at the fact that MDI was lying and now mocks you and others ?

It wasn’t this that made me laugh. It was the fact that you said mono was the start of litigation problem.

No, it wasn’t. Litigation problem existed forever. And since you say you’re in OSS world from 1999 (I predate you for a few years) you should know that.

Btw. Miguel never said it is patent free. He didn’t change a single bit from what he was saying from the start. Mono plan didn’t change. The only thing changed here is the fact Novell started putting out software with “FUD stickers” which say: “We say there is no litigation problem with linux, but you can only be sure if you use Novell linux”. Which is simply outrageous because it goes against everything OSS stands for.

Second, Miguel doesn’t own Novell, how could this “FUD stickers” be his wrongdoing.

Wrong !

90 % of users don’t know how to get rid of this, which is very different from “they don’t give a flying dick”.

But let me bite. Nope, servers and HPC software is 99% of all investments I have. And I’m not braindamaged to write HPC software or high load server services in anything that runs in VM. Neither would I consider deploying server which would run services in any VM, this is why need for service running in running with VM (tomcat, IFolder as example) means refusing the job.

I only use mono for very small jobs (where job is completed in a day or two) and even this only when it suits the needs (which would amount to 5% of that 1%). Most of my code is either C, pascal or assembler. Mono only replaced the use of java for me, which was almost non-existant.

Yeah, which moved on how mono was the first litigation possibility. And if you read my comment, it was disputing exactly that claim.

If you have such a marginal interest, why bother? And why o why is there a need to bring a gorilla in your precius server environment for daily scripting?

Nah, you’ve misunderstood, all my client apps work in Gnome (or at least Gtk as most of gnome is not crossplatform). They are client side, not server side and even that only in case when mono or java is the best tool.

I’ll find another sticky note app if one of my ‘clients’ says so, but please give me a knob to rip Mono out.

Heh, I don’t need to get rid of Tomboy, I was to lazy to move from Notes which were/are better for stickies anyway.

As far as more advanced Note taking than stickies, I’m using my own app for too long now to switch to Tomboy.

What prevents you from doing: yum remove -y mono-core for example on Fedora. You have to check mono in fedora during install I think (not really sure in this) Fedora doesn’t install mono or mono apps by default. Hell put this command in launcher on panel (with gsu or something like that) and you’ll get your knob:)

And if there really is a need, can we give these guys some kind of free Visual Basic or something?

Mono is still free, still free to use, and its ripping Microsoft off, so what’s the damn problem?

Do you sincerely believe that MS is willing to just sit there and watch Mono ripping them off?

Besides, it’s not like Mono is the only alternative when it comes to managed environments. pygtk is many times more popular than GTK#, while Java Gnome had been available for years. Both the J2SE and Python are, of course, perfectly legal to implement as FOSS.

I think it makes sense to remove Mono from Gnome and keep it as a separate component. Most users won’t even notice the difference. However, when a law suit does come up (There is always a risk, no matter how small), it makes a lot easier to remove Mono from distros.

One of the few Linux distributers with the ability to help bring Linux mainstream strikes a major deal and instead of celebrating, most of the community wants to fork Gnome, remove Mono, and boycott their products

Removing Gnome is overreacting, sure.

But I’m surprised you don’t understand sth that is exposed in your sentence : one of the few Linux distributers with the ability to help bring Linux *desktop* mainstream DOESN’T do it, but does the contrary. They strike a major deal for their distro, not for Linux desktop.

They have not even done anything wrong yet and the mob has already assembled and lit the torches

Some of the very good things that is noticeable about the Linux commnunity, is that it learns from history, and has good memory of past events and behaviours.

Two big qualities that lack most of FOSS competitors and bashers, which then don’t understand why FOSS proponents were right.

Your comment shows a clear lack of these two qualities.

You want to throw away all of Novell/SuSE’s contributions just becasue MS is’t going to sue their customers over the next 5 years? Big deal

One other big quality of FOSS proponents is their ability to analyse situations, understand them, in a word : think.

One big drawback of the competition is their total lack of analysis or understanding. Which is what I see here.

There is nothing thrown away if you abandon Novell distro, as all the FOSS components are already in other distros.

Dropping Novell distro is not because MS isn’t going to sue you, that would be a stupid move.

That’s just that most people realise Novell just boarded a sinking boat, and don’t want to be taken down with them.

This is because to many of you OSS is a religion and this is all some kind of David vs Goliath thing

Like lots of people without thinking power, the FOSS competition, when it doesn’t understand a move, instead of trying harder, they go for the irrational explanation :

“if I don’t understand what these people are doing, that must be because they have a irrational faith in some religion”.

Which is exactly your behaviour here.

Red Hat just recently offered their customers protection from IP lawsuits also, does this mean they are alienating the rest of the community too?

Not at all. But as I said before, you lack any analysis mind.

Because to you, protecting your customers against IP lawsuits is the same as paying a tax for them not to get an IP lawsuit.

There is at least one big difference between the two, which I’ll let you find as an exercise.

I say we rally the mob and remove their changes!

Linus holds a trademark to the Linux name, lets rename it! I vote for ReligiOS.

Why do any of that ?

You clearly do not understand anything in this matter, which is because you had the wrong premises, but you have this irrational faith that your premises are right.

You criticize my analytical abilities and praise that of the FOSS community, but lets not forget which of the 2 of us were correct about Linux taking over the desktop every year since 99.

Back then I said we were at least 10 years out and I can’t recall even a single person that agreed with me. I was flooded by witty rebuttals from some very intelligent people but here we are ~50 days away form 07 and it isn’t looking good for the FOSS dream team.

I am not trying to shift focus here, but attacking me was 80% of the focus of your rebuttal rather than giving logical argument against my position.

If you think the MS/Novell deal is a sign that MS intends to openly attack Linux for IP infringement you are wrong. If nobody believes me good, I’ll brag about being alone about calling that correctly too.

As for your “Leave Novell becasue they boarded a sinking ship” statement, since your entire position (that I am just a nutjob) hinges on you being correct about that, why don’t you support your reason for taking that position in your reply rather divert focus to attacking me.

One of the few Linux distributers with the ability to help bring Linux mainstream

And just how is it going to do that?

You want to throw away all of Novell/SuSE’s contributions just becasue MS is’t going to sue their customers over the next 5 years?

Well, they might not sue Suse users but Novell have given the green light to Microsoft to threaten and potentially sue users and contributors using other distros. It’s a pathetically empty selling point that they’ve tried to gain.

If this David isn’t going to duel with Goliath we cast him aside…

No company ever survived very long by pretending they don’t compete with Microsoft. David did actually fight Goliath.

Red Hat just recently offered their customers protection from IP lawsuits also, does this mean they are alienating the rest of the community too?

They didn’t need to do a deal with Microsoft, and they didn’t shift the responsibility for it on to their end users, which is what Novell have done – just like SCO did incidentally.

“Striking the deal, which serves as a FUD powerhouse for MS, was all the wrongdoing Novell needed to do.”

Oh please, you probably posted that comment from your Windows box.

And FUD powerhouse? How so? I say a win for SuSE is a win for Linux.

The only FUD I see is the sudden anti-SuSE attitude.

If the position of Linux is now weaker because of this deal, it is because after the anti-SuSE backlash companies might be afraid of the same kind of community backlash if they get involved and do something that creates the same knee-jerk response.

This mob attitude does more harm in terms of anti-GPL FUD than this deal with MS ever could.

I do not see the need to fork GNOME. Although the project is adopting quite it’s fair share of SNAFUs, there are other DEs out there which are starting to get a hold of some users and are pretty cool too. For example, XFCE. It is incomparably lighter than GNOME and it is very easy to manage. It even uses GTK. The only downside is that it isn’t “battle hardened” but hey, that will come with time.

Somebody needs to replace that broken record, the one which just skips and repeats, playing the same old-same old over and over again.

I like many others here passionately detest the notion and legislated implementation of software patents. I wish that it was possible to turn back the hands of time to undo this patent insanity. Alternately I look to a time when the value proposition of software patents is commonly held to be of no value. Interestingly enough there is an ever increasing pool of major corporations, who have benefited from software patents, promising to not use their patents against free software developers-which in so doing albeit does not go far enough, it does however point towards a future less filled with vapid FUD.

Once the current temper tantrum has run its route the linux world will come back, away from the vapid FUD which is dominating the media (remember FUD serves the purpose of the media-FUD generates media attention-generates attention to the media-a vicious circle of rampant speculation with no non-media counterpart which is supposedly being reported about)and begin to digest the actual consequences of recent events(Novell-MS deal).

After years and years of fighting against a FUD machine which only feeds on itself and which only serves the purpose of masking what issues maybe involved (remember-whether or not any real issues are at work or not FUD masks not only which issues are involved but creates the impression that issues must exist even when none do-or only do to the extent that the FUD is considered to be the reality) mono was brought into the GNOME desktop in an innocuous fashion with the introduction of Tomboy.

Now with the apparent entirety of the linux world all up in a tithe about some *looming immanent catastrophic destruction of all which is good and proper by the embodiment of evil itself, the earthly manifestation of, and convention center for Satans Minions, ie. Microsoft* here we go for another round on the broken record record player—omg patents, omg SM(MS), omg NOVELL-MS, omg then end is nigh, omg mono is now even *more* dangerous than what is was before.

Seriously guys give me some of what you have been smoking.

Microsoft has not ever and will not ever sue free software developers with its patent portfolio. The patent protection racket is an attempt to rescue that which Microsoft helped give birth to-the proprietary software aftermarket. Microsoft along with others, notably Novell, gave birth to a proprietary software aftermarket in the 1980’s effectively coupling their products with all manufactured pc’s.

This market, this economy, and the rules of the game which constitute this market, flourished for almost 25 years. But Linux, but more importantly free software, actually managed to change which game is being played-not just merely rewrite the rules of the game.

An ever increasing percentage of corporations are using free software to leverage their operations-ever fewer companies are using exclusively proprietary software applications-those companies most clinging to proprietary software are those which have a vested interest in maintaing the hegemony of that market.

Software patents are without value in the free software world. Software patents are only of any real significance in the proprietary software aftermarket. Corporations, whose profit is based on the propietary software aftermarket, wield patents in their dealings with other corporations which are founded on the same basis. Patent Trolls use patents to milk this rigged hegemonic system for money.

Novell was historically one of the companies founded on this basis. Novell in purchasing SuSE and Ximian took a step into a different terrain, a different market a different game with different rules of the game which constitute this new terrain-the world of free software. In securing it’s deal with Microsoft Novell urged Microsoft to also venture into this new terrain.

The real news is that Microsoft up till now has simply been unwilling to accept that there is a new game in town and has done it’s best to cast a shadow of FUD against free software in hopes of holding on to its hegemonic position in the market it helped create-this has now changed. Because Novell still has one foot in the old market and only just now venturing the other foot into the new market it’s accord with Microsoft necessarily took on the terms which dictate according to the rules of the game at play in the old market. Hence the lipservice to the IP regime.

But Microsoft in having agreed to the accord actually has committed itself to playing according to the new rules of the new game-and in this new game IP means GPL and patents are worthless-the only proprietary aspect left is the service-and this agreement is all about Microsoft and Novell extending service and support to customers working in mixed software environments-the software which will be written in this case is only to be understood as a utility to further the ends of interoperability.

Each time a corporation, whose financial base lies in the proprietary software aftermarket, ie. who are still entrenched in rules of the old game, tries to sue developers or firms who operate under the rules of the new game, free software, they face the danger of having the rules-according to which they exist, being rewritten(which is what happens when lawyers and judges become part of this system which ideally would/should be regulated by unspoken agreements on behalves of the competing firms themselves to their own mutual benefit).

No corporation with anything to loose would venture such an ill-fated course of action-in so doing they jeopardize their own fortunes. It would be something different if Linux was just yet another competitor in the same old game which Microsoft and Novell played with one another-then Linux would be obliged to amass a patent portfolio and actively sue other corporations for patent infringment- but this is simply not the case. Most commercial Linux distributors operate entirely in the new game- selling service and support for free software. Novell has one foot in the old and one foot in the new game. For fans of the old game the Microsoft-Novell deal is just routine good business-for many of those who have not yet grasped the new game-this deal is impending doom and gloom-for those already in the new market Microsoft just acknowledged them and torpedoed it`s own FUD factory in the process of doing so.

Would you like to bet? Considering this passionate debate I propose the Gnome team to set up a betting / voting / donation page where we could express our wishes with credit cards. That would make some profit out of this steaming wordfight.

Just to remind everyone: this topic was about Gnome. Did the link mention something about Novell? No. Did Thom mention Novell? No. So can someone explain to me why ALL comments are about either patents or Novell? Give me a break..

Anyway, did anyone tried it already? Is it stable and faster? I’m also curious if they included the SLAB menu and, if yes, how they integrated it.

Anyway, did anyone tried it already? Is it stable and faster? I’m also curious if they included the SLAB menu and, if yes, how they integrated it.

I’m running GNOME from CVS, with no stability problems. SLAB hasn’t been integrated yet; it might be added as an option, but I think there’s very little chance of it being the default for this release, as it still has a lot of bugs and UI issues that need to be worked out.

The greatest feature of 2.17.2, for me, is Totem. The browser plugin is now a lot better, and it works with every site that I tried.

I’m also running Tracker, which might be included in 2.18 (though 2.20 is more likely at this point). It’s a nice tool, but it still needs better integration with the applications (Evolution, Epiphany and Gaim for example).

Company like MS can simply say product A violates our patent B. And it doesn’t even matter if it does. It is 99% possible that small developer couldn’t fund the starting cost of litigation and would simply have to surrender.

Nope,you’re innocent untill proven guilty.You even don’t have to show up in court.

There is really no reason to. Mono is not and will never be irreplaceable for GNOME. Due to the nature of the thing, Mono programs are among the easiest to port. There are existing and emerging technologies which most probably can do 99% of the job of Mono:

1. Java: Very similar in design and the only thing standing between Java and the open source community seems to be a general lack of understanding in the Java community. I am quite sure that this will change at some point and then Java could very quickly become a major choice for GNOME development.

2. Python: For really rapid application development, Python is hard to beat. More and more GNOME applications are being written in Python and it seems to me that it’s being used in many of the situations where Mono would have been used before.

3. GLib/Vala: GLib itself can be considered an extension to the programming language. What it can really do becomes obvious if you build a programming language around its features, which is exactly what Vala is doing ( http://vala.paldo.org/ ). If you need a more productive language than plain C but can’t afford the overhead of a virtual machine or interpreter, then this combination might soon be your best choice.

A really interesting point is that Vala resembles the C# language almost one-by-one, so porting C# applications to Vala becomes extremely straight-forward. Since Mono is already used mainly in those situations when you need a decent compromise between performance and productivity and Vala provides almost the same productivity at better performance, I assume that it will become a very popular alternative once it has matured a bit.

Also, since Vala is a much more likely choice for platform development (unlike Mono, it produces compatible libraries and can very easily make use of existing GObject-based libraries), I don’t think we need to be afraid of Mono entering the core desktop platform anytime soon.

I have always been in favour of Mono and still am. But neither do we lack alternatives, nor will adopting some Mono applications put us into an unresolvable situation should it ever come to a worst-case scenario (which I don’t believe in, but anyway…).